THE INLAND REVENUE GETS IT WRONG
Thursday 11 May 2023, the press published an ad from the Inland Revenue Service which caused a fuss. It was not necessary to have run the ad in the first place, but some smart mandarin decided they would do so. Their intention was to warn the public that they were coming to collect their taxes. They were told not to run an ad which would demand taxes of Bahamians. They wrote it badly and the result was Duane Sands, the Chair of the FNM, went to town and rightly so, to say that Government which owes you money for months was seeking to take your property, because you didn’t pay your taxes for seven months.
By midday the Chair of the PLP Fred Mitchell entered the fray in response and explained the following:
The Chair of the FNM is being an alarmist in his voice note that the Government is seeking to take the property of Bahamians. He ought to have checked before jumping to a false conclusion.
His voice note is based on an ad which appeared in today’s press by the Inland Revenue Service. The ad was inartfully written and gave rise to the misinterpretation. The sentence construction listed the descriptions disjunctively instead of conjunctively. The Economics Affairs Minister and the Finance Minister have assured me that the idea is to seek to collect monies owed from non Bahamian land owners and entities who have tied up lands from development but owe substantial taxes.
I have asked the tax authorities to clarify this position by releasing a corrected ad.
End
Our view is that all real property tax on Bahamian land should be written off and start afresh next year.
Most of it is uncollectable and people do not support the tax in any event. But we need the tax but let’s give everyone a fresh start.
Al Dillette Weekly Website Report:
Number of hits for the week ending Saturday 13 May 2023 up to midnight: 442,896;
Number of hits for the month of May up to Saturday 13 May 2023 up to midnight: 784,253;
Number of hits for the year 2023 up to Saturday 13 May 2023 up to m midnight: 7,774,019;